It’s often forgotten by the world that Muslim inventors contributed much to the foundations of our world today. While Europe was in a feudal savagery, the world of Islam was a shining light. During the Crusades and after, the science and wisdom of Muslims made its way to Europe and the rest of the world acquired technology, foods and most of the things we take for granted today. Here are but a few:

Muslims perfected the recipe for soap that we have today. The ancient Egyptians and Romans had soap of a kind, but it was the Muslim Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed’s Indian Vapour Baths in 1759. He was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.

Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon Al Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognizable to a modern surgeon. He also discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally and that it can be used to make medicine capsules.

The technique of inoculation was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight smallpox 50 years before the West discovered it.